A2B-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 11, 1995
Gov. Ridge Announces ’95-’96 Budget Proposal
(Continued from Page A 1)
comes on line. Such a situation
occurred several years ago, under
the Casey administration, when
the state legislature didn’t approve
a budget until late August.
According to newspaper reports
and news releases from admi
nistration agencies and legislators,
the proposal has received wide
support. Deadline-pressing to pass
the budget is apparently not in the
outlook, according to several news
releases from state legislators.
A Wednesday news release
from the state Department of Agri
culture (PDA) stated that Charles
Brosius, Gov. Ridge’s nominee
and acting state secretary of agri
culture, said that state farms and
agribusinesses will profit from
Gov. Tom Ridge's proposed tax
cuts that go along with the budget.
In the release, Brosius said,
“Every farm and agricultural pro
cessor in the commonwealth can
realize a better bottom line under
the governor’s tax cuts. Lower tax
es mean more money in farmers’
pockets without higher consumer
prices.”
Of the proposed state budget,
the Department of Agriculture is
slated to receive a total of
$116,184,000 this year.
That spending includes all sour
ces of funds and covers all
projects.
The amount proposed to go to
the state Department of Agricul
ture from the state General Fund is
$45,863,000 million, according to
the agriculture department press
office.
According to Gene Schenck,
press secretary, there are five
categories of funding identified in
the budget Special Funds,
General Funds, Federal Funds,
Augmentations, and Other Funds.
General Funds are those gener
ated mainly through state income
taxes, etc., while revenues
included under Other Funds come
from the sale of dog licenses, publ
ic weigh masters, the recovery of
lost commodities, etc.
Augmentations are funds
derived from fees for other
licenses and registrations.
Of the types of spending, there
is a basic distinction made between
recurring and non-recurring
expenditures.
Last year, for example, the state
General Fund allocation to agricul
ture was $45,243,000, which is
slightly less than this year’s prop
osal. TTiat figure includes one-time
spending and repeated spending.
However, this governor’s prop
osed General Fund allocation of
$45,863,000 million to agriculture
is all recurring funds, otherwise
known as operational funds.
In terms of recurring funds, the
amount allocated to agriculture
under former Gov. Robert Casey’s
last budget was $43,571,000.
According to an agriculture
department spokesman, what this
means is that proposed operational
spending for agriculture represents
an increase of 5.2 percent
Non-Recurring Funds
While included in the overall
budget, non-recurring funds
should be considered investment
spending, extraneous to annual
spending.
An example of non-recurring
funds would be last year’s
$BOO,OOO spent to build an inciner
ator at the University of Pennsyl
vania’s New Bolton Center. It is
needed to allow Pennsylvania to
destroy diseased carcasses, instead
of paying some other state or facil
ity to do it at a higher cost
For example, two years ago dur
ing an interview about the state’s
effort to coordinate an effective
and accredited animal diagnostic
and disease control system. Dr.
C.S. Card, executive director of
the PDA Animal Health and Diag
nostic Commission, talked about
the cost of handling large numbers
of condemned diseased animals.
At that time. Card had said that
he was aware of a Pennsylvania
shepherd whose flock had Scrapie
disease, and that it had been esti
mated that the cost to incinerate the
120-head flock was from $B,OOO to
$9,000 through a private
contractor.
With each of the laboratories
within the state animal diagnostic
system having an incinerator to
handle diseased carcasses, it
would reduce the cost of eliminat
ing potential human health prob
lems and also provide an accre
dited system within the state.
The incinerator at New Bolton
was part of a project to completely
revamp the state’s ability to detect
and control animal diseases which
had suffered from negligence for
many years.
And it is also part of a broader
scoped project to put the state in a
better position not only to protect
the health of its citizens and the
health of domestic animals, but to
give the state’s livestock producers
an ability to sell to a wider market.
According to Dr. Card, without
an officially accredited laboratory
diagnostic system, many produc
ers are cut out of competition in
selling to export markets.
Expanding export markets and
the ability of Pennsylvanians to
export goods has been part of the
A panel of dairy producers share their strategies and i o m Barley, Dale Hershey, Steve Hershey, Bruce Kreider,
experiences during Lancaster Dairy Days 11. From the left is and moderator Greg Schwieger.
Dairy
VERNON ACHENBACH JR.
Lancaster Farming Staff
LANCASTER (Lancaster
Co.) Discussions of real exper
iences with adopting new ideas
into dairying, and straight talk
about what considerations go into
considerations of investments into
nontypical dairy management
were among the topics shared by a
panel of dairy producers and con
sultants during Lancaster County
Extension Service’s Dairy Day 11,
held Tuesday at the Lancaster
Farm and Home Center.
The top dairy county in the
state, Lancaster County holds two
different dairy day events, while
other counties hold at most one.
The events are normally scheduled
to occur a week apart.
Last week’s dairy day event
focused on cow comfort and mas
titis. This week’s event primarily
governor’s announced plan to revi
talize the business environment of
the state.
Included in this year’s budget is
money to move construction of a
new state diagnostic laboratory
adjacent to the PDA headquarters
building in Harrisburg. The cur
rent laboratory, built in 1957, is in
Summerdale, and because of it not
being kept up to date, the state lost
accreditation of its lab in 1988.
The state was then forced to pay
other state’s to carry out certain
work.
As recently as early January, Dr.
Card received notice from the
chairman of the American Associ
ation of Veterinary Laboratory
Diagnosticians Inc. Accreditation
Committee that because of the
work to develop a tripartite system
involving state land grant universi
ty facilities and the agriculture
department, the state regained
temporary accreditation.
In a letter to Dr. Card dated Jan.
3, M. W. Vorhies, DVM, MS, at the
Department of Veterinary Diagno
sis, College of Veterinary Medi
cine, Kansas State University,
slated, “Congratulations on the
successful beginning. The com
mittee has granted provisional
accreditation for three years and
has asked for annual progress
reports related to committee
recommendations.”
In other words, the state has
received accreditation again,
though it is conditional it
depends on whether other things
promised to be done, get done.
In the budget. Ridge has prop
osed spending an additional
$485,000 to speed up the move
ment of the Summerdale Laborat
Day II Features Real Experiences
with opinions of technologies and
business objectives.
The day started off humorously
with Robert Anderson, county
agronomic extension agent, set
ting the record straight about a
typographical error in the
announcement of topics to be cov
ered. It listed a pest as “spring
redroot.”
Anderson said he had never
heard of such a pest, but that he
would talk about “spiny” redroot.
He also said that while the eiror in
the program announcement was a
mistake, that there are new weeds
and pests showing up every year,
more so in recent years.
According to Anderson, in the
past year he saw several incidence
of a wild millet showing up in Lan
caster County as a weed. It is a
major pest in the West, he said.
But Anderson said that with the
ory and open the PDA’s $6.7 mil
lion animal health laboratory.
“The budget includes the final
funding component to actually
move the animal health lab into a
new facility,” Brosius said. “We
expect to break ground for the new
lab in a few weeks.”
More For Ag
While the accreditation gives
Pennsylvania a boost in providing
services to help certain types of
exporting business, it also pro
vides a sense of security that a
functional system is once again
coming in place that can help pro
tect people’s life investments in
livestock farming operations, as
well as protect human health,
among other non-direct benefits to
quick detection and response to
potentially devastating disease.
What Gov. Ridge’s proposal
may prove to do even more for far
mers is through the proposed tax
cuts.
According to the PDA press
release, Brosius said that making
taxation more in line with other
states helps provide an incentive
for processing businesses to locate
here, thus providing additional
markets for locally produced raw
agriculture products.
“Pennsylvania has done a lot to
promote and protect farms, but the
best thing we can do for agriculture
is to expand markets to make farm
ing profitable,” Brosius said.
Under Ridge’s proposal, the
state Corporate Net Income tax
would drop to 9.99 percent this
year, two years ahead of the sche
duled reduction.
According to Brosius, another
benefit to farming operations,
which by nature experience flue-
anticipated opening up of world
trade, that an increase in the intro
duction of exotic pests should be
expected.
Anderson spent most of his talk
discussing the standards imposed
on farmers by the federal Worker
Protection Standards which
require such things as specific
signs being posted around fields
sprayed with pesticides to warn
farm workers (non-immediate
family employees only) in both
English and Spanish to stay out of
the fields.
He reviewed the rules which
were formed primarily to benefit a
select group of people.
He also reviewed several pests
and treatments for control. His talk
was worth a credit toward pesti
cide certification.
The bulk of the event was spent
in discussions by several produc-
mating amounts of income, would
be the governor’s proposed expan
sion of a special allowance for cal
culating taxes.
According to the news release,
the governor has proposed expand
ing the Net Operating Loss (NOL)
“carryforward” provision. It is
basically a tax break for those who,
by the nature of their business,
have to juggle regularly fluctuat
ing income.
Under the NOL, certain
businesses would be allowed to
use prior year losses to cut back on
the amount of tax they would
otherwise have to pay duringa pro
fitable year. In other words, it
allows those with businesses such
as farming to be more fairly taxed
because it allows the highs and
lows to balance out for tax
purposes.
In addition to being able to use
the NQL, in his budget proposal.
Ridge has requested that the limit
on how much loss can be deducted
to be doubled torn $500,000 to SI
million.
Furthermore, according to the
PDA news release. Ridge has
proposed double-weighting of tax
deducations for those businesses
which create jobs in Pennsylvania.
In his budget announcement.
Ridge said he wanted to eliminate
the state’s “Widow Tax” which
taxes at 3 percent the inheritance
from a spouse. The tax is currently
set to be eliminated in 1998, but
Gov. Ridge has requested that it be
done with immediately.
“Elimination of the Widow’s
Tax will get rid of one of Pennsyl
vania’s most unfair taxes and make
it easier to keep a farm within a
family,” Brosius said.
ers. On the panel were Dale Her
shey, of Hershey Brothers, in
Manheim; Steve Hershey (not
directly related), a producer in the
Elizabethtown area; Tom Barley,
of Elizabethtown; Bruce Kreider,
a Bainbridge area producer and
former extension agent; and Greg
Schweiger, a dairy consultant with
Lancaster Veterinary Associates.
The panel discussions were bro
ken .into morning and afternoon
sessions with James Fry, of
Brandt’s Farm Supply, in Eli
zabethtown, and Darryl Gross, of
Keystone Farm Credit, joining the
panel during the afternoon.
The format was for the
moderator Schweiger in the
morning, Gross in the
afternoon asking the panel
questions. Questions from the
audience were saved undl (he end
(Turn to Pago A 39)